Hydrocolloids are hydrophilic colloidal material used particularly in food, pharmaceutical, coating, mining, oil field, paint, textile, paper, agricultural and personal care product industries as emulsifying, thickening and gelling agents. They readily absorb water, thus increasing viscosity and imparting smoothness and body texture to products. Among the hydrocolloids used are natural types such as plant exudates such as gum arabic, seaweed extracts such as agar, plant seed gums or mucilages such as guar gum, cereal grains such as starches, fermentation gums such as dextran and animal products such as gelatin and semisynthetic types such as modified celluloses and modified starches. The most significant hydrocolloid has been guar gum.
These hydrocolloids are generally available as powders. In use these powders are generally mixed with water for further use in producing a wide variety of products. However, the ability of these hydrocolloids to readily absorb water has lead to a wide variety of problems, particularly in regard to the wettability of the hydrocolloid powders in water. For example, when the powders are added in bulk to water the powder tends to float on the top of the water and clump, gel or aggregate into a mass rather than be uniformly dispersed in the water. That is, the hydrocolloid gels very rapidly before it is properly dispersed in the aqueous medium and produces the gelling or clumping of the powdered hydrocolloid.
It is therefore an object of the invention to provide a hydrocolloid product with improved dispersibility and wettability characteristics and which avoids or substantially eliminates the gelling or clumping problems associated with its dissolution in water. A further object of this invention is to provide a process for obtaining such hydrocolloid product.